Super Auto Pets is the new hot streamer game on the market, earning a niche spot in the top free-to-play games along with Halo Infinite, thanks to long-time content creators like Northernlion and more recently Lugwig Ahgren (who just made a big move to YouTube). It’s an auto-battler where players build a team of five adorable animal-based emojis, all with different abilities and effects.
And, surprisingly, it’s relatively deep and insanely addicting. So, to help those addicted at least get some wins, or to help supplement some cute animal goodness for those having trouble getting back into Animal Crossing, here are all the current pets in Super Auto Pets, ranked.
Updated February 13th, 2022 by Jacob Buchalter: Since the time of this ranking list first publishing, there have been quite a few new Version updates and balance patches for Super Auto Pets. The game has proven that it has longevity as a casual game more and more each day. And, with all those changes, the meta has changed quite often as well, with new animals becoming the "must buy" Pet whenever they show up. So, let's go over all the Pets once again, re-rank them, and see who currently reigns supreme.
81 The Full-Tier List
Because there are over 50+ Pets in SAP, here is the full Tiermaker tier-list list upfront, with explanations on each individual Pet found further down below.
80 Lobster: Tier 4 Expansion Pack
The Lobster is an interesting concept, to be sure, as players could potentially use it to buff a pet on-buy, use a Canned Food, then when they find another copy of the same pet, buy it again and place it in an empty slot before combining the two for some extra stats. But, just explaining that situation felt incredibly over-complicated so trying to use the Lobster in-practice is just as difficult.
79 Sauropod: Tier 6 Expansion Pack
Next up is the Sauropod, a member of the Expansion Pack, and a really cool dinosaur. Sadly though, it almost never gets used. The gold effect wouldn’t be awful if this was a tier four or even five Pet (like the Goat), but almost no one at tier six is giving up one of their units to run one that gives extra gold with food purchases.
78 Duck: Tier 1
Ducks were so incredibly slept on in the early stages of SAP becoming popular. Ducks are just strong animals as it turns out, some would say they're even too strong to appear in Super Smash Bros Ultimate. But, SAP is an ever-evolving game, and Duck-meta is long gone. Nowadays, they're almost always an omen of an incoming Abandon Hat if they show up in a player's shop too often.
77 Shrimp: Tier 2
The Shrimp is surprisingly useful for a couple of rounds, especially for those also running a Dog build. But, trying to run it for anything other than maybe two or three rounds is a death sentence, as there are so many other pets more worthwhile for scaling purposes. For example, the Rabbit also works on a buy-sell team, but it also buffs other Pets when Food is bought, making it twice as useful as the Shrimp. And, that's not even including other scaling units like the Giraffe, Seal, and Penguin.
76 Tabby Cat: Tier 2 Expansion Pack
The Tabby Cat gives non-permanent attack stat bonuses when it eats, which is just not great. Any nonpermanent buff is a big thumbs down in SAP, but at least this one applies to the whole team. And, when paired with a Ladybug, Black Cat, or Rabbit, the Tabby Cat does have a suprising amount of usability, just not a ton.
75 Dromedary: Tier 2 Expansion Pack
The Dromedary can do some work for a while, especially if the player freezes an animal they'll eventually want. Because they’re frozen, the +1/+1 the Dromedary gives to shop Pets at the start of every turn is permanent, so it’s a way to passively scale animals that don’t quite fit the current team comp. But, most of the time, players get "locked" into this tactic without realizing it, losing round after round while waiting for their frozen animal to get good enough stats to be worthwhile. And, quite honestly, its more beneficial just to take the animal out right away and buff another way, or just wait for some Canned Food instead.
74 Mammoth: Tier 6
Almost no one uses the Mammoth in their actual build. More often than not, the Mammoth is just a useful animal that pops out of their Eagle, is pilled for some permanent buffs between rounds, or is sometimes slotted into Whale builds for a bit. Yes, there are players who buff their Mammoth a bunch, give it a 1-Up, and throw it at the front of their team as a sort of "Scorpion buffer", but even then it would be better for them just to slot a different Pet in there instead.
73 Squirrel: Tier 4
This Pet has actually seen a ton of changes throughout the various SAP patches, and is currently much better than it used to be, but it still needs some work. If the player gets a Squirrel right when tier 4 animals become available, it's worth throwing onto the team and freezing some foods that'll be cheaper next round. But, if that Squirrel isn't level two within the next one or two rounds, get it out of there.
72 Chicken: Tier 5 Expansion Pack
Some players swear by the Chicken, but it has to be an early investment. Basically, when running a Chicken, the player can end up with 50/50 animals in the shop at the end of the game, using it like a Dragon that buffs the shop instead of buffing the team. But, this requires a lot of luck and an already strong Pet as the lynchpin of the team while the Chicken gets the shop Pets buffed up. It's a very variable tactic, as it can throw a run or save it depending on the circumstances.
71 Llama: Tier 4 Expansion Pack
The Llama is a Pet that literally requires the player to only run four animals on their team instead of five in order to scale, and this can actually work well. That being said, losing out on one animal slot makes a much bigger impact than one might expect. If a player wants to run a Llama, focus on scaling it up as much as possible in as few rounds as possible. That way, once it's between 30/30 to 50/50, players can get a 5th Pet and just scale the Llama the rest of the way by normal means.
70 Goat: Tier 5 Expansion Pack
How is the Goat this high, despite being basically the same Pet as the Sauropod? Well, there’s one key reason for that, and it’s because the Goat is a tier five unit instead of a tier six. Being able to find this Pet three to four rounds before the Sauropod means that it actually has some viability, as it works well in a Dog-focused buy-sell build. That said, it's not a Pet that can be slotted into any build, and tends to actually throw runs more than it saves them.
69 Octopus: Tier 6 Expansion Pack
The Octopus pre-level three is maybe the top of the bottom tier, but a level three Octopus is frankly almost a top-tier pet. Against certain teams, a frontline Octopus can quite literally wipe the team without ever actually “attacking” thanks to its Rhino-esque ability of damaging enemies before they even attack.
68 Seal: Tier 5
Once again, this is another Pet with an ability that sounds fantastic. But, more often than not, when the player has tier five animals unlocked, they’re way past the phase of scaling animals +1/+1 randomly as the Seal does. That said, for teams that find themselves this late in a run with no means of permenant scaling, the Seal is a fantastic way to do this.
67 Elephant: Tier 2
In the early days of Super Auto Pets, the Elephant, Camel, Kangaroo build was everywhere. Now, after the meta has been optimized however many times, people finally realized the Elephant wasn't worth the investment. But, with Version 0.16 changing how the Elephants ability works just a tad, the jury is still out on its new meta placement. But, one things for sure, it's better than it used to be, players just aren't fully sure yet by how much.
66 Pig: Tier 1
The Pig is basically the perfect buy-and-sell unit for a Dog, Buffalo, or Shrimp build. Because it’s bought for three and sells for two, this is where most of its value comes in. Outside of that, the Pig is basically worthless and should never be leveled up unless there are no other options at the start of round three.
65 Flamingo: Tier 2
The Flamingo is this high up almost entirely because it’s a decent way to buff two units in-between rounds. Where the Ant applies its buff randomly, the Flamingo is guaranteed to give its +1/+1 to the two animals behind. Additionally, it also has a use being pilled in front of an Ox to give it permanent Melon Armor. But, it's in no way a Pet that anyone keeps around their whole run unless an absurd amount of Flamingos happen to appear in the shop.
64 Rat: Tier 2
The Rat, like the Elephant, is currently going through a resurgence in usability thanks to Version 0.16. Before, the Rat spawned a 1/1 Dirty Rat on KO that would spawn at the back of the enemy's team. Then, in the beta version, the Dirty Rat would deal damage to the back unit as well when it spawned. Now, the Rat has the same stats as it always had, but the Dirty Rat now spawns at the front of the enemy team. This makes a gigantic difference, as players can now use a Rat+Hippo, Rat+Rhino, or Rat+Boar lineup to get a free easy trigger on their abilities.
63 Bluebird: Tier 1 Expansion Pack
When players only had four lives in SAP, the Bluebird was awful. Now, because players have a bit more time to set up their scaling with ten hearts, the Bluebird has some viability. In fact, a lot of players just put the Bluebird in the back and let it buff itself for a bit while they focus on the rest of the team. That said, it's not a Pet that's meant to be kept for the whole run, by any means, and +1 attack each turn really isn't worth a ton if left unleveled.
62 Peacock: Tier 2
The Peacock, like the Elephant and the Rat, is another Pet that had some pretty big changes in the recent 0.16 Version update. Now, instead of getting a specific amount of attack each time it's hurt, the Peacock gets +50 percent of its attack once per turn when hurt (at level one). Now, anyone familiar with scaling in video games is aware that percentage-based scaling is almost always better than flat-number scaling, and the Peacock is a perfect example. It's still not a Pet that gets to function as the linchpin often, but it absolutely has more of a chance now.